No crimes have been connected to the so-called "East Area Rapist" since an 18-year-old woman was raped and murdered in Irvine, Calif., in 1986. (FBI)

(Newser)
–
It's been 40 years since a violent serial burglar, rapist, and killer started to terrorize Northern California, but the FBI this week announced there is a new, concerted push to find the so-called "East Area Rapist." Described as a white male about 5-foot-10 with blond or light brown hair, an athletic build, and possible training in military or law enforcement, the suspect is likely between 60 and 75 years old and has been linked to at least 52 sexual assaults in the Bay Area and Sacramento County in the 1970s and '80s. The bureau is offering a $50,000 reward for information that helps identify him and is launching a national campaign that includes billboards. No crimes have been connected to the man since 18-year-old Janelle Cruz was raped and bludgeoned to death in her family's home in Irvine, Calif., in 1986, reports the Los Angeles Times.

And yet, "We believe he's alive," says Sgt. Paul Belli of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau. "There's no reason to believe he's not alive." After serial killer Richard Ramirez became known as the "Night Stalker" in the mid-'80s when he terrorized the Los Angeles area, the East Area Rapist took on the moniker "Original Night Stalker" and has stumped investigators ever since. But DA Anne Marie Schubert, who was 12 and in East Sacramento during the first attacks, says memories haven't faded, reports the Sacramento Bee. "In essence, a community was taken hostage," she says. The suspect is linked to more than 175 crimes since he attacked a woman in 1976, including 45 rapes and 12 homicides. He's known for targeting couples, tying them up, and taking jewelry or coins. (Some think America's first serial killer went on to become Jack the Ripper.)

Really? The FBI is going to make a more concerted push? BFD.. The FBI can't even stop Terrorists like the POS in Orlando when they pulled him in for an investigation and tuned him loose and people ignored a former co worker and former cop complaining about that POS..

Jack D. Ripper

Jun 17, 2016 2:06 AM CDT

I wasn't anywhere NEAR California in the 80's. Seventies....

brawne

Jun 16, 2016 9:25 PM CDT

You know the first mass shooting in this country was in 1949 when Howard Unruh took his walk of death. No one had really done that before--just went out with a gun and a desire to kill anyone he saw. Once he did it--then there were others cause the same personality exists but not the same way to deal with their rage. The first real sorta serial killer was the torso murder in Cleveland. Again, there may have been some before but they didn't get enough press to matter much to the other sadists who want to watch people suffer. My hobby is true crime. Got no idea why but it's faded a lot since murder and mayhem became a television regular thing. Best book about this is Popular Crime by Bill James whose speciality is baseball statistics. He apologizes on every other page for having an interest in true crime. I guess I always wondered why, but if you believe in evil then you don't wonder that as much. Now--I don't wonder it as much either cause it's being born without the parts of your brain which enable you to see other humans as like you--and then the bad luck of nurture and having some wicked parents. I find it odd that people can so easily blame the parents of a child gripped by a gorilla or eaten by an alligator, but yet never think much about the parents who made Bush, Bush or Obama, Obama or Clinton, Clinton or Trump, Trump. They're all different but they all share a need greater than most people's. And you aren't born with that. You're born succeptilbe but there needs to be a trigger. And the trigger is usually a father too intursive or just gone completely like Obama and Bill Clinton. For Hillary it's of course mom though her father was a true authoratarian. He'd throw her toothbrush out the window if she didn't brush. See--it's hard to be who you could have been with that going on. Serial killers are made and not born. It takes a lot of childhood truma to turn a sociopath into someone who could spend all day enjoying ripping your nipples off with pliars.